Welcome,
Classmates to your website. We hope you enjoy what you see here now
and will contribute to its growth by sending us ideas, pictures, personal
stories and suggestions from time to time. To
contact us, just clickTHS 1963 EMAIL

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down for more news

Reunion Pictures

Pictures
from past reunions

Elementary School Pictures

You'll
love these flashbacks.
Pictures from the past

T-Talk
Classmates

Catch
up with classmates &
eMails

T-Talk
Miscellaneous You might find anything here

T-Talk
Teachers Where are they now?

In
memory of our 39 deceased classmates

This
website was created with funds left over from the reunions and from very
generous donations from many classmates. But, like everything else in
our lives, websites and reunions cost money. Your donations to the Reunion
fund can be made out to "Tonawanda High School Class of 1963 Reunion
Fund" and sent to Karen Baldwin Marshall. To email Karen for address
information (we don't put that on the website), click on her name below.
Please make sure THS63 is the subject line. Our thanks and appreciation
to Jackie Herbert for creating and maintaining this website.

Why
not start off the new year by attending the Annual T-NT Reunion on Sunday
February 15, 2015 at the Sun-N-Fun RV Resort in Sarasota Florida! Get
away from the winter and see some old friends as well.

On July
2nd Mr. Lawrence Titzler (teacher) was awarded the Bronze Medal
for his activities in WWII. A lot of local dignitaries were there and
it was very nice and well attended. Way to go Mr. T!!!

There will
be an informal gathering of THS 1963 at Swistons Restaurant in
Tonawanda on Saturday July 12th around 7:30 pm until ?????

Golden
Warriors Picnic for all THS 50 yr plus graduates will take place on
Sunday July 13th from 1-6 pm at Tonawanda Fireman's Park on 2-Mile Creek
Road Rain or Shine. Cost is $20 and includes pop, beer, water, roast beef,
hamburgers, hot dogs, Italian sausage and salads. You may bring your own
wine and liquor.

Jeffrey
Keefe
was officially commissioned as first deacon at Immanuel Lutheran Church
on June 6th.

***June
2014***

Mr.
William J. Hurley Age 84, of the City of Tonawanda, June 18, 2014,
husband of 63 years of Marguerite "Peggy" (nee Buscani) Hurley;
father of Dawn M. (Joseph) Riggie, William J. (Paula), Christopher J.
(Karen), Kevin J. (Margaret) and Patrick J. (Michelle) Hurley; 15 grandchildren
and 10 great-grandchildren; son of the late William Joseph and Margaret
Hurley; brother of Margaret (late Franklin) Boehler, Sally Hurley and
the late Robert and David Hurley; brother-in-law of Lucille (late Robert
Hurley) Rowley; also many nieces and nephews. Friends may call Saturday
from 2-4 and 7-9 PM at JOHN O. ROTH FUNERAL HOME, INC., 25 William St.
(between Morgan & Broad Sts.) in Tonawanda . A Mass of Christian Burial
will be celebrated at 10 AM Monday (June 23) in St. Francis of Assisi
RC Church, 150 Broad St. in Tonawanda. Friends invited. In lieu of flowers,
memorials may be made to St. Francis Outreach Program. Bill was a 1948
graduate of Canisius High School and was a graduate of Buffalo State Teachers
College, receiving his Bachelors in Secondary Education and his Masters
in School Administration. In 1953 he began teaching both Social Studies
and Math at Central School and also Tonawanda High School before becoming
Principal at Fletcher Elementary School in 1956, serving for 25 years
and also Mullen Elementary School serving for three years, retiring in
1985. He was an active member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, where he
served as an usher, administrator of the CCD Program and a volunteer with
their Parish Outreach Program. He was also a member of the Delaware Hose
Volunteer Fire Co. and the Tonawanda Exempt Volunteer Fireman's Assn.
Following his retirement, Bill and his wife Peggy loved to travel throughout
the United States and Europe. They especially like Italy, where they were
fortunate enough to have a private audience with Pope John Paul II in
1994.

Mr.
Lawrence Titzler,
one of our teachers, is receiving the Bronze Star Medal of Honor. The
ceremony will take place at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, July 2nd on Kinney Field
on Brighton Road and Colvin Blvd in Town of Tonawanda. If any of you live
nearby, it would be great if you could attend the ceremony. I know he
would appreciate it. There have been some newspaper articles written about
him and his many accomplishments while in the service. They are enlightening
to read and we are grateful for his service to our country. His wife died
recently after a long illness. If you want to send him a note of congratulations,
please email me at kmarshall5@roadrunner.com

***May
2014***

There
was an article in the paper about Mr. Lawrence Titzler's (Mr. T)
wife's death a few days ago. She had been quite ill for a long time. If
anyone also wants to send him a note, I know he'd apreciate it. He wasn't
able to attend our reunion, but said he'd really enjoy hearing from any
of our classmates. Our class, of course, our THS Class of 1963 was one
of his favorites. Call him at (716) 694-1215

We are
delighted to let you know that Richard Carr is alive and well.
He was reported on our deceased list.

***April
2014***

Michael
Dutton passed
away April 1st.Dutton, Michael F. Age 68. Of Hartland, WI. Found Eternal
peace on April 1, 2014. He is survived by his loving wife Karyn (nee Klein),
his sons Mark (Amy) Dutton, and Frank "V-Jay" Johnson, daughters
Crystal (Brandon) Sisko, and Jannelle Johnson, 2 grandsons, sister-in-law
Jean (the late Richard) Dutton, and several nephews and nieces. A highly
intelligent man, Michael had 29 approved patents. His work career spanned
in various directions, from General Motors, to Quad Tech, Kempsmith Machine
Co., Masterlock, and Custom Products Corp. Michael was a courageous fighter
who battled his disease with dignity. Thank you to Vitas hospice for the
comfort and care provided.

***March
2014***

Sad to
have to tell you we have lost another classmate: Madeline Richards
Ball
September 18, 2012. Passed away with her family by her side. She is predeceased
by her husband, Robert A. Ball. Survived by her daughters, Nadine Ball
and Kristina Stamatis (Matt Duell); grandchildren, Logan, Sofia and Pierson;
sisters, Mary Ann Yurkanin and Nancy Stewart; several nieces and nephews;
and many friends, including her golfing family.

For those
of you who remember Mr. Lawrence Titzler (Mr. T) he is still alive
and kicking. He would love to hear from any of his past students. Call
him at (716) 694-1215.

We have
purchased a brick on the THS Wall at the new stadium. It will be
inscribed with our class. Picture will be published when available.

Tune
in to Bernice Titterington Golden's radio show every Sunday night
from 7-8pm on WKBW radio
(930 AM). Bernice is an internationally known psychic. She also
has a group meeting the last Wednesday of every month in her home. Look
her up on Facebook

Do any
of you remember Margie Doyle? She went to Central Elementary with
us. Ran into her recently at the post office with her mother who still
lives here in Tonawanda. Margie is married, 3 grown children and several
grand children. She lives in Batavia, NY.

***Our 50th REUNION***

What can I say?! It was a great weekend; wonderful
to see everyone again and to make new friendships. Mr Titzler couldn't
make it at the last minute, but Mr. Holler, Mrs. Blair, Mr. Hurley,
and Mr. & Mrs. Holway attended and it was great to see them again.
Seems that Mrs. Blair only taught for a couple of years, then retired
to raise her family.

From Carolyn Pfanner Giambra The conventional
wisdom is that attending your 50th high school class reunion should make
you pause and realize how old you are. I recently attended my 50th reunion
from Tonawanda High School, Class of 1963, after serving on the planning
committee for almost a year in advance, and now I feel young at heart.
Beginning with the casual mixer, the first glimpse of each classmate was
a shocker, half because s/he looks right out of a page of the yearbook
and the other half who were unidentifiable even after hearing the birth
name. Identifying the women was easier because most of them retained their
youthful hair color, but the men had all aged so much with their gray
hair, what they had of it. Luckily we were all wearing name tags with
our senior picture and our name in a large font.
The open microphone provided many laughs that evening. One classmate read
out of the Student Handbook all the rules we obeyed, that our grandchildren
would now ignore and scoff at. From another classmate, we learned why
she was suspended 3 times by the Principal (who attended her church) and
how her mother's discipline ensured that she did not enjoy her time off.
Perhaps 1963 was the last year that children were more afraid of what
their parents would say, when disciplined at school. Another woman interrogated
her classmates about who had conspired to lock the substitute teacher
in her History class in the closet, while others threw his nerdy briefcase
out the window. All mouths are still sealed on that one!
Our main event was the dinner the next evening, planned as carefully as
we had planned our children's weddings. With everyone still wearing name
tags, and more spouses in tow, it was also a night to remember. The music
was provided on an iPod loaded with over 1000 tunes from the Sixties that
a classmate could locate on request. Another classmate gave us each an
envelope of clippings from the Tonawanda News about ourselves, covering
stories about school, college, marriage and careers for many years. I
was able to enjoy an adorable baby picture of a friend's son, published
at the time of his adoption.
The hour before dinner was also the time to chat with the handful of former
teachers in attendance, calling them by their first names. It made me
realize just how young they were when they handled our class, and from
all accounts, we were a handful. For one teacher, our class was memorable
because she only taught 2 years before raising her family. That was quite
a shame, because she was an excellent Math teacher. The men really had
stories to share, since two of the teachers in attendance were also their
coaches, in the time before Title IX, and those males bonded with their
sports teams in ways the women never knew.
The dinner Invocation was given by a female classmate, who recounted in
her prayer the number of wars our class had lived through and been influenced
by growing up. That was chilling. The Benediction was given by another
classmate, who left our school on a football scholarship to Nichols, but
has always considered us his class of choice. He ended our dinner with
prayer after the reading of the names and a moment of silence for the
37 members of our class who had passed away. That was also chilling and
perhaps the only sad moment of the weekend.
If you have an invitation to your class reunion, go. It will erase 50
years of your life.

From Kathy Slater Koler: All I can say is thank
you. Thank you to all of ;you who put in the hard work and dedication
to our 50th Class Reunion this past weekend. What an outstanding affair
and your 9 months (someone said that) of preparation was all worth it.
As I told many of you, I wasn't going to come, but Marv pushed me into
it and Boy! am I glad he did. We had a fabulous time. Only sorry I couldn't
have spent more time with everyone, but we knew that going in. Hopefully
this will regenerate some old friendships and it certainly did make some
new. Tom, you did a wonderful job as MC both Friday night and Saturday
night, bet you didn't think you would be doing that 50 years ago. The
work that Donna put into the story boards was amazine. Karen, I can't
even imagine the number of house you put into organizing this whole thing
with the help of the rest of the committee. I talked to you twice on the
phone and several emails. If everyone did this I don't know when you had
time to sleep. And Jackie is another one who is probably happy this is
over, but with all the pictures whe will have to add to the website, her
job will continue for a long time to come. We will be sending you pictures
as soon as we get back from vacation. Joan, so happy to see your face
as we entered the Eldredge. You haven't changed a bit and seeing you meant
we were in the right place. Jim, your music was timely and well-received
(at least at our table). I know all my 45s are still buried in the basement
and we sold our Elvis collection on Craig's list. Good job digging all
that up (or did you still have them)! My only regrets are that I never
got around to Joe and Karen Armenia on Friday night. There were a few
others I didn't find on Friday, but reunited with on Saturday. I don't
know why I waited so long to come back, but hopefully John Kovacs is right
that we can do another one in five years (maybe on a smaller scale) because
old friendships shouldn't be wasted. Thank you again for a fabulous event!
Marv & Kathy (Slater) Koler

From Pat Por Mathews: Thanks so much again for
the great job you and your team did on the 50th reunion. It was fun and
so great to see many of my friends from high school. Dave and I traveled
to New York City for the week after the reunion and I decided to look
up Bev Holcombe since her address was in the reunion booklet. After much
searching, we found the apartment building. When we buzzed her apartment
(which was listed as J Holcombe) a woman's voice answered and I explained
that I was an old friend of Bev's. I don't know who the voice was, but
she said that Bev had passed a few years ago. Sad news - I had so wanted
to see her. Pat has a blog of their new house as it was being built. visit
www.patmdavidw.blogspot.com.

From Don Wehrung I can truly say after 50 years
that my best friends in life are from THS Class of 1963. Thanks for all
the memories.

From Unknown Classmate: From someone who was
"terrified" of 7th and 8th grade (I was from the wrong side
of the tracks) thanks so much for helping me see the stars - the friends
I had in high school.

From Karen Richards: Many thanks to the runion
committee

From Ed Kaman: Fun! Fun! Fun!

From Rosemary Wagner Campisi: Good to see everyone

From: Jim Kaiser: Lots of fun! One of the Island
kids, thanks Karen

From: Nancy Koch: Ge it's great to be back home
again

From Bill Socha: Good luck to class of 1963

From Sandy Neuhaus Schnell I'm happy to be a
part of such a great class. Reunion Weekend was great

From Karen Baldwin Marshall: What a great reunion
it was!! The committee was the best and all our work was worth it.

From Joan Roth Close: What a wonderful weekend
full of good memories and laughs